Posted
by
Zonk
on Tuesday May 23, 2006 @10:14AM
from the actually-owning-your-stuff dept.

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica's Nate Anderson has an excellent writeup on the rise of eMusic and how they're suceeding despite their unwillingness to hop on the DRM bandwagon. From the article: 'The Holy Grail of online music sales is the ability to offer iPod-compatible tracks. Like the quest for the mythical cup itself, the search for iPod compatibility has been largely fruitless for Apple's competitors, whose DRM schemes are incompatible with the iconic music player. For a music store that wants to succeed, reaching the iPod audience is all but a necessity in the the US market, where Apple products account for 78 percent of the total players sold. Perhaps that's why eMusic CEO David Pakman sounds downright gleeful when he points out that there's only two companies in the world that can sell to them--Apple and eMusic.'"

It's nice to see a company that selling music in a drm-unencumbered format. It's basically doing things right - instead of locking your customers in (after they've bought a track, they find out lots of players can't play it).

Also, eMusic supports indie artists. Really good to see, because some artists get less then half a cent [boingboing.net] per purchase from other online music stores.

Well, they are almost doing things right...I am a former customer of theirs. I like the business model, but the search feature was frustrating. I heard a dance/pop version of "Time after Time" on the radio once. I thought that eMusic might have it. You can browse the "dance" category. You can search for the words "Time after Time". You apparently could NOT apply both criteria at the same time.

Well, I also left because finding good music takes time, and I don't have any. I paid $10 per month, and went

Mindawn.com, magnatune.com, studiodownloads.net, disclogic.com, digitalsoundboard.net. There are many more. All work on the ipod. All lossess or (compressed if you want that) no drm. Admittedly the selections is small, but I'd rather have a thousand stores with lossess music and no drm than one store with a large selection.

Yeah, I was just going to mention those. Plus audiojelly.com & playittonight.com. I'm eternally grateful that the dance labels (even what I would consider "majors") understand that their customers are not criminals and just want to listen to the music.

beatport.com as well. At least, if you are into electronic dance music, it's a great place. 1.49 for older tracks, 1.99 for newer. 320kbps Mp3 or for an extra $1 you can get.wav. No DRM, no restrictions on personal use and they are legally clear for DJing with(provided the venue has their ASCAP license, just as with other formats).

Credit where it's due, Emusic has been selling 99-cent downloads since 1998. When Steve Jobs announced it in 2003, everyone acted like it was a shocking new revolutionary idea. But some of us couldn't help but think, "Oh, you mean like Emusic?"

I'm an Emusic subscriber and love them, but there are LOTS of legal services out there, these days, selling good ol' MP3s (or even FLAC/OGG) with no DRM

Many record labels like Magnatune [magnatune.com] and Bleep [bleep.com]

and the somewhat-legal allofmp3.com [allofmp3.com] for the major-label stuff.

We keep a full list of them at cdbaby.net/dd-partners [cdbaby.net] (in 10 languages!). Though that list is meant mainly for our musician clients, it's a good permalink for a constantly-updating list of digital music sellers, with a short description of each.

Don't get me wrong -- I want to try emusic (but I can't figure out how to see what is available prior to signing up) but face it, there are many people out there who will find that emusic doesn't have the kind of music (namely, the artists they like) they want to hear.

Until emusic fixes this, they will not go fully mainstream.

emusic cant 'fix' this unless they get in bed with the corrupt labels & become equally corrupt themseleves.

"there's only two companies in the world that can sell to them--Apple and eMusic."

It's rather a startling point . ..

. . . given how many people are doing it; and have been doing it for so long. Even more startling that Ars Technica seems to be uncritically accepting the marketing claim in the article and run with the ball. It's, well . ..doofey.

It's even more doofey that Slashdot, which has run any number of stories about outfits selling/distributing unencumbered mp3s, should perpetuate the claim, but, we

That's being generous! It may be legal in Russia, but it's almost certainly not legal to download from them in Europe or the US.

The rule is that it is legal to import stuff that you acquired abroad, if the production of that item would have been legal had it been done in the country into which you are importing it. allofmp3.com clearly fails this test.

While I won't disagree, the whole importation issue is really a red herring. Downloading is not importation, at least under US law, because importation involves the movement across borders of material objects. Downloading wouldn't qualify. You'd need to mail a CD or something.

All of MP3 may be "somewhat" legal in Russia but it is fully-non legal for Americans (or Canadians, Australians, and anybody else who is lives in a country that's signed on with international copyright laws) to buy music from them, as it says outright in their terms of service. You cannot legally make a digital copy of copyrighted material you don't already own without the permission of the copyright holder. I don't really care, honestly - I think it's a little foolish doing something that leads such an

All of MP3 may be "somewhat" legal in Russia but it is fully-non legal for Americans (or Canadians, Australians, and anybody else who is lives in a country that's signed on with international copyright laws) to buy music from them, as it says outright in their terms of service.

All of MP3 may be "somewhat" legal in Russia but it is fully-non legal for Americans (or Canadians, Australians, and anybody else who is lives in a country that's signed on with international copyright laws) to buy music from them, as it says outright in their terms of service.

Actually, it doesn't say that at all in their terms of service. What it says is that:

"you should not download audio files from AllOFMP3.com if the Terms are in conflict with the laws of your country of residence."

Pot is effectively legal in the Netherlands. But that doesn't mean that Americans can import it from there. That something is legal in one country doesn't mean it will be elsewhere.

Similarly, for people here in the US, American copyright law is in effect, and Russian copyright law is irrelevant. And the laws here prohibit downloading from allofmp3, regardless of whether they're legal in Russia or not. As I see it, if you're going to pirate music, you might as well not pay shady Russians when it's entirely possible to do it for free.

And in an effort to prevent people from replying with misinformation, if you disagree and wish to reply, please first consider and address the following issues:

That 17 USC 602(a)(2) [cornell.edu] by its own language is limited to the import prohibition in subsection (a) [cornell.edu]; the prohibition in subsection (b) [cornell.edu] remains in force.

That copies and phonorecords are defined in 17 USC 101 [cornell.edu] as being material objects, which means that no physical object in Russia can be moved to the US via the Internet, making section 602 [cornell.edu] a red herring.

That the courts have stated that unauthorized downloading of copyrighted works is an infringement of the reproduction right of the copyright holder. See e.g. Napster [uscourts.gov] and Intellectual Reserve [uh.edu].

That the courts will generally assign liability for the reproduction infringement to the downloader, barring unusual circumstances, like downloads that were in fact caused by a hacker, and not the user of the computer. See e.g. Netcom [cornell.edu].

That the standard of proof used in a civil copyright case (e.g. one brought by the RIAA) is the preponderance of the evidence standard, which results in the defendant being liable if thinks that there was as little as a 51% chance that he actually did it, even if they entertain reasonable doubts (e.g. the presence of an open WAP, that there are other people able to use the computer).

That 17 USC 1008 [cornell.edu] is inapplicable, because it does not cover downloading. See e.g. Napster [uscourts.gov] and Diamond [findlaw.com]. Also see the important definitions in sections 1001 [cornell.edu] and 101 [cornell.edu] and what the law would require if 1008 were applicable to computers, per sections 1002 [cornell.edu] and 1003 [cornell.edu].

That just because RIAA has not sued someone yet does not mean that they cannot or will not. See e.g. the suits against Napster (which started in 1999) and the suits against users (which started in 2003). Tactical concerns, such as how to use the limited budget for legal action in the most effective way, or which

It's a little sickening how you got modded up to 5 just buy throwing a lot of legal verbage (in links no less), none of which actually makes your point.

Your own first links that you cite point out that phonographs, legally copied, are allowed to be imported. Then you point out that downloads are not physical items, and declare phonographs a "red herring".

This is the real point, that NONE of your legalese refutes:

These songs were legally produced in Russia; in Russia, downloading an mp3 and listening to a song are considered about the same thing; the reason the allofmp3 songs are so cheap is because you're basically paying to hear it on the radio (when you consider how many of us used to tape our favorite songs off the radio as kids when we couldn't afford to buy the cassette, this practice isn't that revolutionary).

If the RIAA doesn't like having its music sold at the rate of radio tunes in Russia, it's free to stop doing business with companies in Russia, free to stop accepting royalties, etc.

NOTHING in the links you posted implies that legally produced mp3s that are legally purchased and imported for personal use have been found illegal. Certainly, if you did something like share the files around with your friends on bittorrent, that would be a different story.

But thank you for throwing up that MOUNTAIN of irrelevant legal verbage to disguise the fact that you resent having to pay.99/song off iTunes, when your "in the know" friends have been paying.9-.25/song.

Your own first links that you cite point out that phonographs, legally copied, are allowed to be imported.

Actually, there are significant limits on that. What 17 USC 602 does, as you'd know if you read it, is it prohibits importing phonorecords unless two conditions are both met: 1) that, had US law applied in the place where the phonorecord was made, the making of it would have been legal, and 2) that one of the three exceptions in subsection 602(a) is applicable. Just satisfying one or the other isn't good enough; it has to be both.

So when you say, These songs were legally produced in Russia, that's not good enough. In order for 602(b) to not prohibit importation, it doesn't matter if it was legal under Russian law. It has to have been legal if US law had applied. And since US law doesn't have the same compulsory licensing scheme that allofmp3 purports to rely upon, it just doesn't work out.

But again, all of this importation discussion is a red herring. When you download, you are not importing. You are reproducing.

So to sum up, you said: NOTHING in the links you posted implies that legally produced mp3s that are legally purchased and imported for personal use have been found illegal.

And you are utterly wrong. It is impossible to import an mp3 by means of downloading it. This is because the statute deals with importing phonorecords. A phonorecord is defined in the law as a material object, such as a CD, or a vinyl record. If you can download one of those, as opposed to the information on it, I'll be impressed. For your next trick, you can download a sandwich. Furthermore, even if you were importing them -- which would basically have to be through the mail or via a courier or something -- that would be illegal because there's really just no way to get around section 602(b).

If you had bothered to read the relatively small amount of entirely on-point legal documents, you wouldn't have made a fool out of yourself. Let's hope you don't do so again.

you resent having to pay.99/song off iTunes, when your "in the know" friends have been paying.9-.25/song.

Actually, I've never used iTMS. I think it's a rip-off. And I don't resent people who pirate music, whether it's on Allofmp3 or wherever. I think that it ought to be legal for people to download music for free.

What I don't like is people spreading misinformation about the law. If someone is making a decision whether or not to break the law, I think they should be fully informed. And I think that in order to rally support for changing the law to reduce the scope of copyright, people are going to need to have accurate information as to just how bad copyright is now.

And as you yourself just said, "When you download, you are not importing. You are reproducing." Reproducing is copying my verbose friend. And you are off again - sending something over the wire is also considered importing.

Or have you forgotten the old export controls on cryptographic software transmitted oversears already? You can't have it both ways you know, unless you are saying uploaded is exporting and downloading isn't importing?

Finally, quoting the statute,

"This subsection does not apply to--...(2) importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage; "

again, copies or phonorecords. If you the copy is just for yourself or part of your baggage if you physically came through the borders there is no issue.

A copy of a phonorecord is also a phonorecord. Take a look at the definition at 17 USC 101.

And you are off again - sending something over the wire is also considered importing. Or have you forgotten the old export controls on cryptographic software transmitted oversears already?

I know them, and there are still controls of this nature. However, those regulations, which were enacted by an administrative agency, rather than Congress, specifically define exportation as encompassing Internet transmissions. Congress, on the other hand, has not so defined importation for purposes of copyright law. The agency definition isn't particularly relevant, as it's not of Congressional origin, and deals with an entirely different subject matter. If you want to argue about what copyright law says, you're going to have to do so based on copyright law, not something entirely unrelated. This might seem odd to you, but it's a fairly ordinary situation.

If you the copy is just for yourself or part of your baggage if you physically came through the borders there is no issue.

Except of course, that 602(a)(2) only applies to the ban on importation in subsection (a). It does not apply to the independent ban on importation in subsection (b), which you are still failing to address.

And of course, Allofmp3 has nothing to do with importation anyhow, as I've shown. That's why you had to resort to an example involving baggage, which certainly isn't involved in most people's transactions with Allofmp3.

[T]he code indicates the two cases, you insist I be thorough in my responses, I indicate both cases and you suggest I'm resorting to the second?

Actually, I don't have any idea what you're even trying to say here.

The question we've been discussing has been whether a person in the US who downloads mp3s from Allofmp3 has engaged in copyright infringement punishable under US law. Some uninformed people suggest that the various laws regarding importation yield the answer that such activity is not infringing. They are wrong, and I have shown this. On the other hand, I have pointed out that the laws regarding reproduction are directly on point and do in fact prohibit this downloading.

In order to contribute to the discussion, which you haven't done yet, you are going to need to either show, in light of the applicable statutes and caselaw, that it is infringing, or that it isn't. This means not dodging the reproduction issue, and not dodging the vast majority of the importation red herring (if you are going to waste our time with it). So far you've cherry-picked and misinterpreted. It all sounds great, if you don't know anything. But to those of us who are honest, and who really want to know what the law says, your brand of nonsense is pretty sad.

Now, if you are trying to talk about 602(a) and (b), you cannot neglect the fact that there are independent prohibitions on importing in both (a) and (b). The exception in (a)(2) only applies to the prohibition in (a). That is why it says 'subsection,' not 'section,' or 'title.' Thus, even when (a)(2) applies, you must still deal with (b). You haven't. You also haven't dealt with the overall inapplicability of importation anyway. You haven't shown that information being transmitted over a wire or through the air is fixed within a material object, as it must be in order to qualify as a phonorecord.

And it's a waste of time in any case, because talking about physical movement with baggage over borders is a non sequitur. We're talking about downloading, not traveling to and fro.

Like I said, to import a phonorecord, the phonorecord itself must cross the border. But a phonorecord is defined as a material object. A vinyl record, a CD, an eight-track tape -- those can all be phonorecords. An Internet download cannot be.

But the material objects at either end of the download -- the computers, their RAM, their hard drives, etc. -- those can be. So, when you download, you create a new phonorecord at the receiving end. This is the act of reproduction, and it is infringing per 17 USC 501 and 106(1).

While I don't care for this result, the Intellectual Reserve case I linked to before does an excellent job of explaining this. This case dealt with people downloading (in order to view) a web page that had been put up unlawfully, but whether we're talking about a web page or an mp3, this analysis will come out the same:

The first question, then, is whether those who browse any of the three infringing websites are infringing plaintiff's copyright. Central to this inquiry is whether the persons browsing are merely viewing the Handbook (which is not a copyright infringement), or whether they are making a copy of the Handbook (which is a copyright infringement). See 17 U.S.C. 106.

"Copy" is defined in the Copyright Act as: "material objects . . . in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." 17 U.S.C. 101. "A work is fixed' . . . when its . . . sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration." Id.

When a person [**10] browses a website, and by so doing displays the Handbook, a copy of the Handbook is made in the computer's random access memory (RAM), to permit viewing of the material. And in making a copy, even a temporary one, the person who browsed infringes the copyright. See MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511, 518 (9th Cir. 1993) (holding that when material is transferred to a computer's RAM, copying has occurred; in the absence of ownership of the copyright or express permission by licence, such an act constitutes copyright infringement); Marobie-Fl., Inc. v. National Ass'n of Fire Equip. Distrib., 983 F. Supp. 1167, 1179 (N.D. Ill. 1997) (noting that liability for copyright infringement is with the persons who cause the display or distribution of the infringing material onto their computer); see also Nimmer on Copyright 8.08(A)(1) (stating that the infringing act of copying may occur from "loading the copyrighted material . . . into the computer's random access memory (RAM)"). Additionally, a person making a printout or re-posting a copy of the Handbook on another website would infringe plaintiff's copyright.

In principle, I think what allofmp3.com is doing when they sell to Americans is no different than what WalMart does - move production overseas to evade US law (such as minimum wage) thus reducing production costs. But I'd be surprised to learn that that's widely accepted. For some reason it has become generally accepted that IP law is global (i.e. you can't import physical copies that would violate copyright if manufactured here), while labor law

Can you give any sort of a reference as to U.S. Government activity in regards to AllOfMp3? I would like to know who and which branch of government is doing that, because frankly I think there are enough messed-up things in this country deserving of government attention that are a whole hell of a lot higher up on the priority list than whether somebody in Russia is skimming off Vivendi-Universal's revenue stream.Any politician or government body that thinks that's a national priority has some serious accoun

eMusic is a really great site and I use up my 90 track limit in the first few days of every month.

My only problem with it is there is no easy way to request certain artists and albums and get feedback when the albums finally do get added (this is even more true in the UK, not all the tracks are available to download just yet).

I was an eMusic customer for over a year, but I left because a subscription-based service doesn't work for me. I ended up with songs I wouldn't have downloaded otherwise (and never listened to afterwards) just to use up my monthly allotment. Since it's track-based, you may end up paying about the same as if you bought an album with many tracks on iTunes for the "whole album" price. Plus, you're stuck with music in a compressed format with no tangible goodies (liner notes, etc.).That said, for what you ge

I've been using up my 90 track limit so quickly I'm thinking about getting some bonus tracks (mostly to get the bands that will be playing at the festivals).But saying that, one of the things I like is that I actually listen to all the music I download now, all of it.

Before with soulseek, I would often download so much stuff that I would listen to some of it only once, and never come across it again. I often put my music collection on random, and I lost track of alot of music that I liked.

See, only issue with the subscription based service for me is that I end up using my allotment long before the month is over. I'm tempted to upgrade to 90 tracks a month because of my current backlog, but I'm not sure I'd have time to really absorb that much new music in a month.

But we should also give credit where credit is due and mention that Magnatune (http://magnatune.com/ [magnatune.com]) has been doing this for years. The buyer chooses what he wants to pay per album - in fact, if you're a cheap bastard, you may download a full album for as little 5$ in the format of your choice: MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC or AAC.

And I love their motto: "We are not evil." Now, where else did we hear that phrase?

I love magnatune - they have a great setup and they "are not evil" - the only thing i wish they would change is that if you buy the CD that the cd be one with album art if there is any, All the albums that i have gotten have been the generic case and label..

if anyone knows if there is a way to get them with album art please tell me i havn't found it yet.

How do they handle the metadata and MP3 file tags for classical music?I've never really downloaded any classical music because I've been concerned that the tags wouldn't contain anywhere the information that I normally type in myself from the CD case. A lot of online services just try to match the usual pop-music fields of Artist, Album, Track Name, and that's really not enough information for classical recordings.

At the least, I'd want to make sure that I was going to get the composer, conductor, orchestra

If anyone is looking for digital downloads of techno and electro music, check out http://www.detroitdigitalvinyl.com/ [detroitdigitalvinyl.com]... No DRM, 320kbs downloads (with uncompressed.wav files comming in the future), and it was started by Mad Mike of Underground Resistance and Submerge Records so it's got street cred.:)

It's good to see Mad Mike keeping true to his vision. Since the time he first released "Message to the Majors" a lot had changed in the industry - much of it for the worse.For a lot of us in underground music scenes like techno, rap and punk taking control of the means of production and distribution has been a huge goal - and slowly technology has enabled that vision. DRM schemes run contrary to this spirit and stores like iTunes may be hip, but they aren't nearly as benevolent as their fans believe.

all this mention of dance/electronic labels and nobody mentions WARP?
BLEEP [bleep.com] is a fantastic store that sells both compressed MP3's and lossless FLAC's.
when bleep first came out, their goal was to provide digital versions of previously vinyl-only albums, as well as making WARP's entire backcatalog available. they're still not there yet, but they're doing a whole lot better than most labels, who seem to think that buying records is a privilege to be doled out as they see fit.

..of companies that make money selling digital music without DRM, look at just about every company that has sold CDs for the last 20 years. It's not like the model hasn't already proven itself. Even the big media companies know they can profitably sell unDRMed stuff, because that's how they became big media companies. DRM is a "solution" looking for a problem.

Am I the only one that remembers Taping?God, it's just so much WORK to copy a CD, who in their right mind would do that?

No one remember pressing down that little record button to duplicate a cassette tape? No one remember renting or borrowing CD's and recording them to tape?

We've been screwed over. We've been accused of being criminals with absolutely no evidence presented. We now happily purchase crippled similies of products we once could use freely.

I went through my taping phase. Everyone that grew up listening to music knows that trading and sharing music is what generates interest in music in the first place. If I couldn't have had that access to music growing up, I never would have gone through the phase where I started a CD collection that grew over the years to ~1000 discs. I never would have spent upwards of $10g on music.

Know what I spend on music now? Fuck all unless it's an independant non-crippled product. Period.

Yep, Apple et al are really winning this one. Unfortunately, they are actually, but they wouldn't be if people would wake the fuck up and open their eyes to what they're actually spending their money on. The American carrot is simple: Make it so brutally easy for them to give money that they will gladly do so, without even glancing at what it is they are buying. America is selling itself out in the name of 'convenience'.

It's simply false to say there are only two companies selling digital music online that is compatible with iTunes. Two major companies, perhaps, but there are lots of people legally selling MP3s - from artists who are selling their own product independently to Bitpass' music experiment Mperia. It's unfortunate that as yet these sorts of outlets haven't managed to leverage some combination of blogging, feeds, aggregation and online community to simulate something like a unified entity, so that people would notice they were there. I really wonder what the real impact of these sorts of things are - I'm sure I'm not typical but for several years now I've been getting more music from these truly alternative sources (what's eMusic I'd count as alternative mainstream, still pretty solidly within the label system though clearly a different league - though not always a more enlightened one - than Sony, Universal et al). And I know nobody is counting that shit, speaking of lost sales and suchlike.

I ended up ditching it because it was so hard to download albums. Their binary file was linked to some.so file that didn't exist on fedora - and that wasn't the only problem. Even downloading the albums in a zip file would have been better than nothing.

I ended up ditching it because it was so hard to download albums. Their binary file was linked to some.so file that didn't exist on fedora

Yes the download manager sucks, but it is easy to fix this.

Click on "Your account"Click on "Change Download Manager"Click on the button that Disables the eMusic download managerNow you can download any song by right-clicking on the download button and select "Save as..."

I'm getting the impression that a lot of people/business seem to think that selling music without Digital Restrictions Management and other anti-consumer technology is somehow difficult or not expected to be successful. Um, hello? Does nobody remember the Cassette era, when purchased music was freely recordable and many players had two decks in order to facilitate copying? I don't recall any sort of music industry collapse back then. Sure we didn't have the internet back then, but people still traded music. A lot.

*SHOCK* *AWE* You can make money selling music that people can freely copy? ZOMG!!1!

Businesses who think that selling unrestricted music that people can freely copy need only look to the bottled water industry to see that it's possible. In the west we have (effectively) free, clean drinking water, yet people spend billions each year buying it from stores. Sure, anyone can "turn on the tap" of the internet and get their fill of mp3s, but that doesn't mean stores can't make a huge profit selling those exact same mp3s.

Bottled water sells because of psychological tricks and convenience. MP3s can sell the same way.

Does nobody remember the Cassette era, when purchased music was freely recordable and many players had two decks in order to facilitate copying? I don't recall any sort of music industry collapse back then. Sure we didn't have the internet back then, but people still traded music. A lot.

Few things- I assume you had to make 10 copies of the cassette for 10 of yourfriends - you would have spend a few hours doing it - with digital files youcould email it to 10 of your friends in 10 seconds.

The largest content torrent that I've seen had about 750 leechers on it.

The *typical* large torrent has bout 120 seeders to 120 leechers. This is usually anime or a 1st run television show that was just shown.

However 99% of content torrents that I've seen has 1 to 2 seeders and 8 to 20 leechers.

It costs money and time to store downloaded material- and there is *always* a chance you will lose it.

There is a *solid* market for a copy (Vongo perhaps?) that sells me a lifetime license to a song/show/movie/book/etc. and stores a copy on their end.They then charge a *reasonable* re-download fee (say 10% of the minimum wage), a reasonable annual storage fee (say 2 cents per gigabyte- a typical 400 movie library is about 1600 gigabytes- but they only have to keep 1 copy of each for "N" users) and allow me to re-download the song/show/movie/book/etc. a reasonable number of times per year (say once per year) with a small number of floating downloads which allow me to download twice for when things go wrong (an exceptions for cases where I can show them a police report).

But seriously--- most torrents are very small and it takes days (weeks...) to download things. There were a few things on emule (not a torrent) that took literally almost 3 month to download. I think almost anyone would pay some money to get it *now* vs getting it 3 months from now (or 12 days from now).

If the media cartel had not driven prices up so high (-- $20 mil for an actor? Should be more like $500,000-- with similar reductions all along the food chain with movies costing $5 to see as a result). However, they have raised their prices so high that people are finding many other less expensive forms of entertainment.

That's a great argument, if it didn't completely remove the ability for people to think for themselves and do the right thing.You are propagating the bs stance that the record companies want us to swallow hook line and sinker: Because it's so easy, EVERYONE will obviously be a criminal, how could they not when it's so easy?

Do you have trouble walking past a candy rack at the variety store without slipping one in your pocket? No? Why not?

Now, you get a file sent to you in the mail. It's a song. It doesn't ha

Yes, and cassette copies were lossless, too./sarcasm. A copy of a copy sounded like crap, and that doesn't hold for digital music. Unlimited generations of copies for digital music is a lot different than max two generations for cassettes.

Not siding with the industry here, just playing a bit of devil's advocate.

Did you really buy pre-recorded cassettes? Anyone would who would should never be concerned about sound quality--it started as crap.

Most people made quality cassette copies from vinyl. You would get together with friends and make copies of each other's LPs. It was all very social, unlike to day, where geeks sit at home, alone in their parents' basements or attics and download tons of digital music (most of which they won't ever listen to) whilst masturbating...

Dude, chill out. There's no reason to shout fuck you at me just because I was pointing out a logical fallacy in the OP. Obviously you have some issues that need to be worked out -- normally when people get that aggressively defensive abnut something they are doing or have done, it's because of some feelings of guilt.

The point was that the state of the industry today with digital music copying is NOT the same as it was 25 years ago with cassette recordings. And furthermore, that the easy copyiong of dig

"The Holy Grail of online music sales is the ability to offer iPod-compatible tracks. Like the quest for the mythical cup itself, the search for iPod compatibility has been largely fruitless for Apple's competitors, whose DRM schemes are incompatible with the iconic music player."

This article makes it seems that Apple compatibility is holding back companies from selling music online. An iPod will play MP3s. The problem is that the studios will not allow anyone to sell music online without DRM. FairPlay was Apple's solution to this problem. Apple doesn't want to license it, and that's their choice and right. So these companies don't have many choices, but Apple wasn't the one that created the problem. They found a solution that works for them.

Other posters have pointed out companies other than eMusic who are selling non-DRM MP3 downloads. Another is Bleep [bleep.com]. Originally it was far-out electronica from the Warp label, but other labels are on board now, including stuff that's definitely not electronica.

The article kept talking about 'indie', but missed the fact that emusic has a huge back catalog of classic rock and earlier. You want Deep Purple or Eric Burdon, they've got it. It's easy to get much of what you hear on classic rock radio. And since so many (too many) stations are switching to 'classic rock', this must mean people want it.

They also have live stuff. Interested in Colin Hay's solo takes on 'Men at Work', or (back to Deep Purple) live Deep Purple? And what they call indie, I'm not so sure-- Tom Waits gets a lot of media coverage and movie deals for an 'indie'. He's there.

They also have a phenomenal jazz and blues section, which is yet another niche not served. Miles Davis or Charlie Parker aren't "indy", after all. And there's folk, and celtic, and world. It's that 'long tail' model. Basically, emusic has a mix of radio stuff, and all the stuff you can't buy on CD at your local Walmart anyway.

I guess I'm tired of anyone not carrying the latest pop being labeled 'indie', particularly given pop's tendency to forget the past. I don't want this to be a commercial for eMusic, just a note that they are offering the kind of stuff that you can hear by dial-hopping on radio, but can't find in most big box stores. That's more than just 'indie'.

I've been gushing over eMusic for a while, simply because they've just gotten it so right. With their model, they understand, beyond the whole record store mentality, what it means to be a music fan. And you just don't get that with iTunes or (especially) Napster.

There's just something graceful about a service that surprises you with new bands all the time. I've been able to wade my toes into genres that I wouldn't have touched otherwise, like twee-pop. (Heavenly is a great band.)

It's nice to know that these guys are not only successful, but they're successful in all the right ways. I have a feeling that there'll be a point where eMusic gets so successful that the major labels have to start taking notice and talking to them more seriously. Beyond the lack of DRM, they just do so many things right.

1) At CompUSA, I was given a card that offered me 100 free downloads, over the course of 30 days. When I tried to sign up, that turned into 50 downloads/14 days. To their credit, after questioning them, they did offer me the additional 50 songs if I signed up, which I did. (But the trial was still for only 14 days).

2) My renewal date was listed on my account as April 14th. Being a good procrastinator, I still had a large chunk of that 100 songs on my account on the 14th. I scanned thr

In spite of the "in bed with Microsoft" complaints back in the early days of BootlegTV (and Fripp's providing "effects" music for the upcoming Vista release), when DGMLive.com finally opened its shop, the music was and is released in non-DRM formats. MP3 albums for $9.95, or FLAC (lossless compression) for $12.95.

I was a subscriber to the old emusic years ago, and I still listen to many of the songs I downloaded. And I downloaded LOTS.

The new emusic with the download restrictions isn't as attractive to me because I like to download entire albums, but I see they've added a 90 downloads for $19.95 a month option, that's not too bad. I might subscribe again for a few months.

TFM mentions that EMusic used to have a subscription with unlimited downloads, but that since it cost them around 8 cents/download the revenue model didn't scale up for high-volume downloaders. Thus they adopted tiered rates and limited downloads.

They're oh, so close! They just went the wrong direction:

They need an E-Music file-sharing application! It could be just like (the original) Napster, run off their own servers, checking a custom ID3 tag to verify that shared files on the network are all legi

It's always puzzled me why the music and movie publishers are so obsessed about the possibility of "exact digital copies." The commercial success of indifferently remastered "AAD" or "ADD" albums, or mediocre DVD transfers of slightly worn or dirty film, shows that the public puts only a small value on technical state-of-the-art perfection.I've also thought, quite seriously, that a good way out of the DRM impasse would be to retain all the technical garbage and lockdown of current DRM systems, with one impo

I've never paid for a tune from iTunes -- and since discovering emusic.com, I probably never will.

Everyone else in the thread has already said it, but I just wanted to add to the chorus of people urging emusic virgins to check the service out.

In addition to picking up new music from old favorites like Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists, and The New Pornographers, their insightful reviews and helpful, music-lover-friendly emails have led me to find a bunch of new music I love. Calexico, Tarkio, Gomez.. A bunch of random electronic tracks... Oh, and a bunch of B-3 jazz / blues, like Tony Monaco, Jimmy Smith, Joey DeFrancesco, et al.

Seriously, it's great. It's like Christmas every month when the downloads renew and I can go grab a couple more albums. I dig it:)

I think even more influential is the Barenaked Ladies initiative they've had on this entire issue.I attended a concert in December and purchased a coupon I could redeem at the website for a live recording of that concert. I finally got around to downloading it last week. No DRM, various formats I could download in (either tracked or two huge mp3s perfect for burning)as well as PDFs of CD covers and inserts that could be printed.

I could also purchase any of the other shows they've done, as well as some other things.

Its nice that a retailer is pushing no DRM, but I think its more important for the artists to get together like they have here. This should be a more important message because its what the artists really want, the retailers are just middle men and their opinion shouldn't hold that much weight with the lawmakers and standards.

I agree with a lot of people that eMusic is a great service, and a great deal. I use it, in fact.
But I didn't see anywhere in the article where it mentioned that emusic is actually making money. There is a section wth the heading "is it making money" in which they don
't actually answer that question........they just spew some facts about market share.

Last I heard, eMusic was hemorraging money. I guess they're suffering the same fate as many dot-coms - great idea, great service, losing money big time.

I was amazed to RTFA and find myself accurately described by their CEO. In college I spent all my money on music, and when I started working full-time, I dumped a lot of cash on CDs. After I had kids, I stopped going to clubs, I didn't spend much time hanging out with friends listening to music, and I lost touch with current trends in music. I rode out the electronic/lounge/trip-hop wave of the 90s, and found myself bored with my discs but unwilling to drop $20 to try anything new. I all but stopped buying CDs about four years ago.

I tried eMusic I think around 2000, when they were an all-you-can-download service, and I didn't find much that appealed to me. I came back about two years ago, and now I'm on eMusic's biggest subscription package with 400 items in my save for later list. At my subscription level, albums cost under $3, so I don't hesitate to download anything, and I find it to be an aging indie rocker's dream come true. Probably half of my iPod is filled with eMusic, and I'm happy that it's not taking up any space in my apartment.

I really only have a few complaints about eMusic:

The Linux client doesn't really work. I had to set up tinyproxy to handle its socket connections. You can download without the client, but it's tedious.

I wish they'd let me buy a bigger subscription. The bonus packs aren't as cheap per track as the subscription. I'd like to download an album a day.

The track tagging isn't all that great. Sometimes they're in title case, sometimes not, the genres aren't always a good fit, and the download manager puts spaces in filenames. They don't include album art, so you have to scrounge that up on your own.

The save for later lists are limited to 100 entries and get a little unmanageable if you overdo it.

Not cheaper... but they have a good selection of indie artists you will not find on AllofMp3.com. As the other poster noted, they are legal... not quasi-legal like AllOfMp3.com. Also, it appears that AllofMp3 may be on its way out of business... or at least on hiatus while they work things out with the Russian Mob... I mean government.

It's back up, but my $10.00 re-charge attempted to charge $257.10 on my card as opposed to $10.00. Thankfully I noticed at the Verified by Visa page, but, it makes me wonder if this is their 'exit strategy' of taking 25x more money than they were authorized to, then running away from the mob to a different country.

Either way, if you go to re-charge any time soon, check to make sure you're not being overcharged. I'm not too confident in their business practices after my recent experience.

It's back up, but my $10.00 re-charge attempted to charge $257.10 on my card as opposed to $10.00. Thankfully I noticed at the Verified by Visa page, but, it makes me wonder if this is their 'exit strategy' of taking 25x more money than they were authorized to, then running away from the mob to a different country.

Nah - that $257 was 257 roubles. I just attempted a refill for $10, and it said 297 RUB = $10. I don't think anyone was trying to cheat you.

Put another way: They're making boatloads of cash as is - why put all that at risk for the sake of a few hundred bucks, which they'll earn normally in the space of a couple of hours?

I guess I must have got on when eMusic was still pretty young...about four years ago I signed up because TMBG offered all sorts of goodies for 10 bucks a month through eMusic with unlimited downloads in the other sections.
Well, I know I got my 10 bucks and then some a month out of it. I still listen to a lot of the stuff I found on there.
It was a really easy way to get exposure to some more obscure bands (via more mainstream bands. ie: Ass Ponys via Violent Femmes) I wouldn't have heard otherwise as well

I remembered reading something a week or two ago about more trouble w/ the RIAA and crackdowns in Russia. Soon after that Allofmp3 had some technical problems and quit adding albums to their collection.

Oh... and I check today and they just added 30 albums... so I jumped to the wrong conclusions. Long live AllOfMp3.com!!

The problems Russia is facing with piracy are mass production piracy outfits that bootleg dvds by the hundred thousand, not a website that actually is legal under Russian law and can no long be considered a loophole (it would have been "fixed" by now otherwise)

RIAA and MPAA want crackdowns on the real pirates that are selling bootlegs produced in quantity. Legal manuvering can take care of allofmp3.com by making them cough up more and through a bit of treaty work that makes the copyright cartel in Russia pay up.

allofmp3.com is like a fly compared to what is going on in Russia to the RIAA. a non entity when there are bigger problems to deal with. They probably have another 3-5 years before any real changes occur that will matter.

It is not cheaper but it is legal. allofmp3.com is NOT legal, despite what many people say.

allofmp3.com violates the spirit of the law, if not the exact wording. It is like saying that identity theft was legal because when it first started happening, there was no specific law against it.

no be sure to tell me how legal it is and how paying money to the russian mob is better then downloading via P2P.

If you are going to steal music, just fucking steal it and get off your high horse. I personally hove no problem gettign ALL of my music from P2P, and honestly, having spent time in Moscow, see no need to further fund the terrorist organization that is the russian mafia.

Moscow Southwest regional prosecutor's office has apparently decided that a loophole in Russian copyright law (it only covers infringement via physical media, e.g., CDs and DVDs) allows Allofmp3.com to continue operations. In addition, Russia employs the concept of compulsory copyrights, where the copyrights belong to the artist or music label, but copyright owners are required to license it to anyone who making a request.

allofmp3.com violates the spirit of the law, if not the exact wording. It is like saying that identity theft was legal because when it first started happening, there was no specific law against it

Why don't you just say it's "like pedophilia" or "supports terrorism" if you're going to use absurd analogies. As for the "letter" and "spirit" of the law; the mechanism AllofMP3 is using is basically the same as applies to radio stations; they don't have to negotiate with every label for every song, they just pay a lump sum to a collection agency. If AllofMP3 isn't making these payments, they would presumably have been prosecuted.

"In addition, Russia employs the concept of compulsory copyrights, where the copyrights belong to the artist or music label, but copyright owners are required to license it to anyone who making a request."ISTM if this were the case in America, firstly the RIAA cartel's distribution monopoly would cease to be such a flog on P2P, and second, it would encourage P2P affiliate sales, which would make everyone who cared to host files a little money, and probably make the cartels more money than they ever imagined

For the U.S. the theory goes... that importing a work for personal use if acquired legally in another country is legal (it is in fact legal). The questionable part comes up with the idea that works were actually "aquired" in Russia and not the U.S., since media is stored in Russia and presumeably the buyer is in the U.S. It's one of those grey areas... maybe a loophole, maybe an oversimplification or misunderstanding of the law.

You forgot to say "IANAL" because you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Allofmp3 is legal due to Russian law, and the only way to make it illegal would be to change the law, and as far as I know, that seems kinda hard to do in Russia, especially something as anti-consumer as copyright.If identity theft were legal when it was done, it was legal. The US Constitution explicitly states that anything that isn't already illegal due to a law is legal. Trying to punish someone for an act that wasn

As other people have pointed out, allofmp3.com is quasi legal in Russia because of a loophole, run by the Russian Mafia and they provide 0 dollars and 0 cents to the artists and their labels. It would be exactly the same as if you setup a store like theirs by ripping CD's you had in some other country except that your service would be shut down right away.

You may be able to justify it to yourself that allofmp3 is legal but I'd like to see how you could justify it as being morally or ethically correct. You

Step 1) borrow from the library a CD - any artistStep 2) make a copy of that CD onto levied media for personal useStep 3) return the CD to the library

This is legal.

Note optional step 1: buy a CD from a store, and then return for a refund in step 3. This is still legal - for obvious reasons, many stores will not give refunds on CDs, only replacement on defective CDs.

The $0.21 levy from a blank CD goes to a copyright collective, which distributes the money to Canadian artists. The similarity to allofmp3 is that there they pay a Russian copyright collective (ROMS) not a Canadian one.

In neither case, if I copy or download an American artist, does the artist get any money. The artists/labels know where the money is going - its up to them to make a deal under the national laws that apply.

My understanding is that the U.S. labels asked the Canadian copyright collective for their cut. They were told that a reciprocal arrangement was a great idea, so as soon the labels could arrange for levies on U.S. blank CDs, the Canadians would be happy to do a deal. It wouldn't surprise me to find that ROMS has a similar arrangement - should the labels actually want to bring income for their artists, rather than just grab all the control they can.

Jeebus H Chris....why in the world does someone post up AllofMP3 when the discussion of DRM and music comes on? I'm not going to get into the pseudo-legality of it in the US....you can argue with it all you want, but everyone knows it's a shady gray area.

Why would you pay for quasi-legal music?? Just fucking download it for free already. Don't try to justify it being "right" because you're paying "less".

Yes, you can. In fact, I've never bought a single tune from ITMS but my iPod Nano is packed solid with music (haven't had to go to ITMS - I ripped my entire CD collection to mp3 a long time ago, and continue to do so - much cheaper to buy a used CD in many cases and use it as a 'master copy' of sorts).

You simply import the music into the iTunes library, make a playlist from it, and transfer it to the iPod.

iTunes and the iPod can encode (create) and decode (play) music in the following formats:Let's get the "iPod Format" or "works with the iPod" or "the format the iPod needs" out of the way. Journalists say this when they mean the M4P AAC format; the one the iTunes Music Store will sell you music in. There is also the M4B AAC format, for protected spoken word files. Naturally, they both work with iTunes or an iPod.

However, the News Stories often implies you need to have that format to work with the iPod or iT

You, my friend, seemed to have confused iTunes, a music service, with the iPod, a hardware device. The iPod works perfectly fine with all the lovely quasi-legal mp3s that you annd I purchase at allofmp3.com.